nsx and mid engine question

hey, i love the nsx, best car in the market. wish i can afford it.

but my friend who has a 95 subaru wrx tuned sti. hates the nsx and most mid engine cars like mr2 cause they got crap handling and corning. i keep telling him that his wrong, and that most car clips i see, especially in best motoring, the nsx is not as good in stright line spped, compared too the nissan skyline gtr, but when in cornering, the nsx is the sickest.

am i right. and he said that even in normal driving in the road, u can spin out and crap like that. is that true.

and what can i tell him about the nsx against teh wrx and skyline. cause hes gonna sell his wrx for a r32 gtr.

You can spin out pretty much any car if you dont know what you're doing. Snap oversteer is a problem most MR cars have, you wouldnt say Ferrari and Lambo handle poorly would ya?

The problem is, the car has bad handling w/ a bad driver. To the untrained driver, its not as easy to handle, you have to learn the car. Thats why some people think MR's cant handle, because they cant handle them. I wouldnt ever call oversteer a "problem."

You most likely will never spin out a car driving the speed limit in good weather like a normal driver. Its under heavy cornering or in the rain where if you suddenly brake or lift throttle the car will snap. A trained driver has to learn not to lift off throttle when going too fast...

Yea, Lachean is right u can spin out in any car, there is no car that can never spin out, if u are going to fast into a turn u can spin out...even if ur in the best handling car ever

Best handling cars are Mid engined cars because the weight distribution is always close to perfect 50/50. Since the engine is located in the middle the center of gravity is very close to the middle.

Porsches have the engine on the back and they do Oversteer a Lot, but they are one of the best handling cars in the world.

I have a 98 nsx, It is my Joy, it is my toy and it is the next best thing in life...after my wife. It is the only car I have ever had that still excites me a year and a half after I bought it getting into it. As far as handling: it is one of the few automobiles that a NOVICE could take around a corner at 50 mph.......someone with some skill with the car can do it at 70. Don't believe me? Ask anyone at nsxprime.com most of those people have the cars!

ever watch est motoring videos? sti can never keep up with an nsx.

if mr's had bad handling why would they make f1 cars mr? and why would ferrari, and lamborghini, bugatti etc. make their cars mr if it handled badly? something to think about

your friend is so wrong its not even funny. mid enigne cars are among the best handling in the world.

and an nsx running with the skyline? no contest the nsx is far superior, the first car to come production with an aluminum body. and its far more reliable.

Mid engine bad handling lol cough cough porsche. Excuse me it jus popd out :evillol:

...hmm,
i don't think you can use formula 1 cars as an example for the better handling quality of mid engined cars.
for a start, they are far too removed from being anything like a road car for any real comparison to be made.
also, weight distribution is just that, distribution.
you can set up a car to be 50/50 with the engine in the front as well.
it's just that it's easier to judge the weight, and handle the 'swing' when its behind you.
so while it isn't best per se, it is just more suitable for some purposes.

as for the 911.
please remember that it's only quite recently that the 911 has gotten over it's pendulous rear end problems.
and when that rear goes, it still takes a hell of a lot to catch it.

Not the gt2!! hehe

Btw what about the s7 or a mclaren. mid engine correct. actaully I take that back a porsche is rear engine supposedly.

so what about the ferrari 575? 612? 365 gt/4?
aston martin DB9? vanquish?
SL55 AMG? SLR?
TVRs?
Bentlys?
BMWs?

are they not super fine handling drivers' cars?

my point wasn't to argue.
i was just trying to point out that like the 4wd, rwd, fwd argument, 'best' depends on what type of car it is.

and the 911 it isn't supposedly rear engined.
it is rear engined.
the whole of the block sits behind the rear axle.

it is rear engined.
the whole of the block sits behind the rear axle.

I thought so. but still the best is brobably a midengine cause of more equal center of weight on the cars chassis.

best is brobably a midengine cause of more equal center of weight on the cars chassis
it's not that simple....

50/50 weight distribution suggests taht the car is perfectly balanced
but in reality, it doesn't quite work like that as in motion, the 'weight' of the car shifts about.
the point of keeping the mass close to the centre of the car is that the driver can better feel what is happening to it
(assuming he is placed near the centre of the mass)

like i said before, there are ways of moving the centre of mass close to the centre of the car, even if the engine is up front.

AND
as porsche have shown
even with a 'stupid' layout,
good handling can be had with smart engineering.
admittedly, it's taken them 41 years to get there....

best is brobably a midengine cause of more equal center of weight on the cars chassis
it's not that simple....

50/50 weight distribution suggests taht the car is perfectly balanced
but in reality, it doesn't quite work like that as in motion, the 'weight' of the car shifts about.
the point of keeping the mass close to the centre of the car is that the driver can better feel what is happening to it
(assuming he is placed near the centre of the mass)

like i said before, there are ways of moving the centre of mass close to the centre of the car, even if the engine is up front.

AND
as porsche have shown
even with a 'stupid' layout,
good handling can be had with smart engineering.
admittedly, it's taken them 41 years to get there....

So basically its good and bad then cuase the driver has ore of an affect on the cars performance then. LOL @ porsche 41 years its a good track record though literally:biggrin:

it's why the 911 works well.
(please excuse the oversimplified following statement...)
at rest, the weight distribution is well, a bit crazy.
however,
while it is in motion, the effective 'centre' is pushed forwards towards the centre of the car and as long as you keep accelerating, you're fine; the car is super sharp cos the rear end is absolutely pinned to the road by the engine and the front is pinned to the road by the turning effect.
it's when you decelerate or when you go over a bad camber (and the weight shifts vertically and hence cause the rear or nose to either suddenly get v.heavy or v.light) that it gets twitchy.

but that's more or less been fixed by very clever software.

put it this way.
a front engined car is easy to understand and easy to balance because of weight at the front, drive to the rear.
slip of the rear tyres is more or less totally in your hands (or should that be feet?)

a mid engined car is slightly more difficult to control because everything happens faster (you have less room for error but the rewards are 'greater').
turn-in, breaking traction etc etc, is more 'snappy'.
BUT
everything is sharper, more direct, not quite as adjustable as a front engine/rear drive but you can drive closer and longer on/near the limit.

now for the totally screwed up 911.
weight at the rear means that the front is very light.
this means very sharp turn-in
BUT
v. easy to kick the rear out.
however, clever suspension and very careful tyre choice can reduce this (assuming road is flat and perfect tarmac...)
unless you're going at speed in which case the nose gains weight and everything settles down more evenly.
basically, it's as if the faster you go, the better it drives.
but as i said before, that all changes when you want to move whilst slowing down....
in the good old days, braking and turning would've been best done with a prayer to your god/s.

it's been said that the 911 is a car that you really have to learn to drive,
mainly because its handling qualities (due to the engine placement) is almost 'not natural'
and as a result,
it takes a lot of getting used to.
one of my uncle's colleagues in lisbon has wrecked more than one 911 in his years....

anyway.
i must apologise once again for the over simplified descriptions but hopefully you get the idea.

while i'm no expert, i've heard the subject of weight distribution discussed a lot and hopefully i don't butcher it too badly here:

when accelerating directly forward, the weight of the car "shifts to the rear" because of the inertia of sitting in one place. imagine two overlaid cars, one sitting still (the weight) and the other (the body) moving in one direction. where is the weight relative to the body? behind.

for this reason (among many others), sports cars are generally RWD, because the load will increase on the rear tires while accelerating (and we all like to do that). increasing the load on the rear tires will give them better traction (in general) because the coefficient of friction is a one-to-one correlation with the downward force (it gets stickier, which is what we want).

even in front-engined cars, 50/50 weight distribution (though i think infiniti claims 52/48 is better because of the acceleration-induced shift?) isn't too difficult to achieve. nissan's 240sx and mazda's rx-7 are both wonderful handling cars with good weight balance. in a front-wheel-drive car, like most hondas, the weight tends more to be about 60/40 front/rear. this is generally also to increase the weight over the driven wheels.

one reason MR cars are appealing is because FR cars need to get the power from the front of the car to the back, causing a little more drivetrain loss (more moving parts = more power lost as heat). think of an MR car as an FF car where the engine and driven wheels were pushed to the back of the car.

unlike an RR porsche, where the weight is actually behind the rear axle, an MR car's engine sits more or less between the four wheels. so fewer/shorter parts are required to get the power to the driven wheels from the engine, giving MR cars FF-like drivetrain efficiency while maintaining RWD dynamics.

as far as turning, there is a term 'polar moment of inertia.' my layman's understanding of this is that you want as much weight as possible as close to the center of the car and as low as possible. this is one reason sports cars are generally lower than say, an SUV (aerodynamics, etc. are other reasons).

take the following with a grain of salt, as this is purely an illustration i just thought up: imagine a hammer; the handle is light but the head is heavy. hold the handle perpendicular to the ground and rotate it 90 degrees to either side. now let's make it 50/50 weight balanced. attach another hammer, upside down, to the end of the first hammer's handle. now you have a dumbbell, basically. move it through the same 180 degrees back and forth. now let's move the weight to the pivot point. attach the heads of the hammers together. rotating them is much much easier than before, right?

hope this was of some help,
-dxm72

the nsx is based on the f1 car and driver feedback from areyton senna. The mid engine car does handle better due the weight distribution because the weight is more towards the center of the car.....that is why you don't see f1 cars with engines in the front......yes a front engine car can be set up to handle great but its not going to compare to a mid engine car......but remember driver skills are important.... nsxprime.com